Summary

Hyatt Hotels Corporation is a global hospitality leader with seven decades of heritage and nearly 1,500 hotels across 82 countries. Through the World of Hyatt app, it serves approximately 61 million loyalty members, delivering seamless, personalised guest experiences at scale.

Protecting guest data is paramount, which is why Hyatt chose Bitrise on AWS as the only CI/CD solution capable of meeting its rigorous security requirements. The move has led to faster build cycles and higher velocity, helping Hyatt scale innovation, strengthen guest loyalty, and stay ahead in a competitive market.

Challenge

Hyatt's security posture demands complete control over its software supply chain, including a strict requirement that source code never leave its AWS virtual private cloud (VPC). The Hyatt mobile team, however, recognized that setting up a macOS build environment in AWS would be a significant challenge. The team needed a low-maintenance CI/CD platform that also met its strict security requirements on AWS.

Initial architecture: complex, slow, and unreliable 
For Hyatt, a centrally managed CI platform had long been the enterprise standard, but by 2023 the company had begun shifting toward in-house, self-hosted tools like GitLab. However, the mobile team still needed the managed service for hosted macOS runners, which led to a complex workaround.

“From a security and efficiency perspective, our old setup wasn’t ideal. Pushing code to Azure defeated the whole purpose of keeping our repo on-premises. On top of that, keeping Jenkins and Azure running at the same time and in sync was very challenging. And so when I joined Hyatt, my first priority was to overhaul the process and make it work better." 
_{Dimitar Milinski, iOS Architect, Hyatt Hotels Corporation}

Additionally, app builds were painfully slow because Azure DevOps relied on Intel-based virtual machines with just 3 vCPUs and 14 GB RAM. This led to unpredictable performance that the team was powerless to control.

“Our builds could take anywhere between 30 minutes on a good day to over 90 minutes on a bad one. It varied wildly depending on how busy Azure was, for example weekends could be fine and then mid-week everything would be painfully slow. There was no consistency.”
_{Dimitar Milinski, iOS Architect, Hyatt Hotels Corporation}

Inconsistent testing, endless re-runs
Test runs were excessively long and inconsistent, with about 20% failing for no consistent reason. This was especially frustrating when a run took over 60 minutes, only to then fail, forcing reruns. “We still don’t know why this happened continuously, Azure would just report back ‘test failed’ and that was it,” shared Dimitar. As a result, the team could not use merge protection rules for failed runs as it would add too much friction to an already arduous process.

“Our tests were so unreliable we couldn’t block pull requests without slowing everything down. Test runs already took over an hour, so we hesitated to add more, especially snapshot tests, as they’d only complicate things further. But without that coverage, we were always nervous about app stability and errors slipping into the code.” 
_{Dimitar Milinski, iOS Architect, Hyatt Hotels Corporation}

It was clear Hyatt’s existing mobile CI platform was undermining the team’s confidence in CI checks. Because of this, a test passing or failing meant little, and the team was always on edge about unexpected issues delaying progress and forcing late nights. 

“We had a lot of non-negotiables so finding a solution to satisfy all of them was a real challenge.”
_{Dimitar Milinski, iOS Architect, Hyatt Hotels Corporation}

Solution

The Hyatt mobile team evaluated multiple CI/CD solutions, but Bitrise on AWS was the only one that met all their non-negotiable requirements without compromise.

For starters it offers a highly secure managed CI/CD solution for mobile, with runners deployed directly in the customer’s AWS VPC, a top priority for Hyatt. It also provides Linux and Mac EC2 AMIs with all mobile tools pre-installed and updated with every new tool version (ex. Xcode), allowing engineers to focus on building features instead of maintenance. Most importantly, it delivers the same streamlined developer experience the mobile community expects from Bitrise, while fully satisfying enterprise-grade security and data residency requirements critical to Hyatt.

“We looked at many solutions including GitHub Actions, GitLab Runners, and CircleCI, Bitrise on AWS was the only one that met all our requirements without compromise. It was a perfect fit for our unique needs.”
_{Dimitar Milinski, iOS Architect, Hyatt Hotels Corporation}

Hyatt was up and running on Bitrise in just a few days. They credit Bitrise’s specialist support and expertise for making this possible: “The team were so helpful throughout the process. A huge shoutout to Ben Boral for always being super responsive and supportive,” says Dimitar. 

An added bonus was that Hyatt’s mobile developers were able to set up Bitrise on AWS without requiring deep AWS knowledge. Even those new to AWS were able to get started quickly, without needing specialist training or expertise.

“Our AWS experts at Hyatt helped with the initial setup, but since then Bitrise on AWS has been straightforward to run and maintain. It’s great that anyone on the team can use it confidently without deep AWS knowledge.”
_{Dimitar Milinski, iOS Architect, Hyatt Hotels Corporation}

For a mobile team that owns its own CI pipelines, like Hyatt’s mobile team does, it was non-negotiable that the CI platform provide mobile-specific tools (ex. built-in code signing) and support. Bitrise on AWS has proven invaluable, helping the team move fast and manage mobile-specific needs effortlessly.

“The fact that Bitrise on AWS is mobile-focused is a huge advantage for us. The solution understands what we’re trying to do. For example, when setting up a workflow and adding steps, the default values are reasonable and make sense. Most of the time it’s just drag-and-drop, rather than writing a script from scratch (though I can do that too). Common tasks are super simple because the solution knows the problems we’re trying to solve. Even for maintenance, like switching Xcode versions, it helps to have a CI/CD that understands these challenges—something a generic solution can’t match.”
_{Dimitar Milinski, iOS Architect, Hyatt Hotels Corporation}

Results

"We noticed performance improvements right off the bat. Evaluating stability takes time, one stable day doesn’t prove much, but with Bitrise, test runs and the overall solution have been consistently smooth and stable. It’s been awesome.” 
_{Dimitar Milinski, iOS Architect, Hyatt Hotels Corporation}

• Maximum protection, minimal maintenance 

  For Hyatt, ensuring robust security of its digital supply chain is crucial to protect guest trust and maintain brand reputation. With Bitrise on AWS, Hyatt’s mobile builds run on dedicated hardware within its own environment, unreachable from the internet. Plus, Bitrise’s preconfigured Amazon Machine Images come ready with all the mobile development tools, including Xcode, so the team can get started right away with minimal setup. 
• 89% faster builds 

  With Bitrise on AWS, Hyatt cut build times from 90 minutes to an average of 10 or less, moving away from underpowered Intel runners to modern ARM-based Macs powered by AWS EC2’s mac2 instance type. 
• 78% faster test execution

  Average test suite durations have dropped from 45 minutes to just 10 minutes, on top of this automated processes are ensuring more consistent, reliable, and accurate results. 
• 2 to 2.5 days per month freed up for higher-value work 

  Previously, Hyatt's mobile team lost up to half a day per week (equating to approximately 2-2.5 days per month) due to unexpected pipeline issues. Now with Bitrise the team is free to focus on important tasks instead of constant firefighting.
  
  “With Bitrise I now have more time to concentrate on architecture-related priorities, instead of trying to figure out why tests are failing, fixing pipeline issues, or staying up late at night to get a build out. Of course this is great for me, but ultimately it benefits the whole team too,” adds Dimitar. 
• Flakiness is reduced with reliable testing

  Hyatt has been able to eliminate an entire class of test flakiness with performant M2 Pro runners, restoring trust in automated testing. Since moving to Bitrise, they’ve also added 150+ snapshot tests and plan to scale to 1,000 within the year. 
  
  “With Bitrise's snapshot tests, we are seeing improvements for all teams. Developers are avoiding bugs, QA is spending less time logging tickets, and releases are going out on time. The benefits are huge,” adds Dimitar.
• Mobile CI confidence is back 

  Before Bitrise, Hyatt’s builds failed around 20% of the time without clear reasons, which eroded the developers’ trust in CI. Now, with a stable build environment in place, test failures are no longer ignored, ensuring issues are spotted and fixed promptly, “now when a Bitrise build passes it actually means something to our developers, whereas it didn’t count for much before,” shares Dimitar.

The future

With Bitrise on AWS providing a reliable foundation, the Hyatt mobile team continues to optimize its delivery pipeline, investing more deeply in automated tests and static analysis checks. and unlocking the full potential of its World of Hyatt app. The team’s goal remains clear: use Bitrise, a secure, reliable, and performant CI/CD platform to continuously deliver superior digital guest experiences. 

“We continue to work on modernizing our codebase and improving the overall performance of our World of Hyatt app. At the same time, we’re bringing in new functionality and loyalty-focused features to further enhance the guest experience.”
_{Dimitar Milinski, iOS Architect, Hyatt Hotels Corporation}

While the team has already realized major performance and security gains with Bitrise on AWS, what also stands out most is the expert support they continue to receive.

“With Bitrise on AWS, we’re able to deliver high-quality experiences faster for our guests, all while maintaining the highest level of security. The Bitrise team has been an absolute pleasure to work with, we always feel listened to, and seeing our feedback implemented so quickly has been amazing.” 
_{Dimitar Milinski, iOS Architect, Hyatt Hotels Corporation}

Deliver trusted apps from a secure build platform with Bitrise on AWS